Better electrical hazard training is needed to address the serious burden of workplace electrical injury, according to new research from Monash University.
National injury surveillance and workers’ compensation data show that more than 400 serious claims are made in Australia each year due to electric shocks at work.
Electrical contact also consistently ranks among the top 10 causes of occupational fatality.
The research, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, found manufacturing workers accounted for around one in five of the 285 accepted workplace compensation claims lodged for electrical injuries in Victoria between 2018-19 and 2022-23.
Construction, which includes electrical services, accounted for 16.1 per cent of these claims.
By occupation, electrotechnology and telecommunications trades workers lodged the most claims at 16.5 per cent. They were followed closely by labourers such as freight handlers and shelf fillers at 13 per cent.
Lead researcher Dr Dee Tomic, from the Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health at the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, analysed coroner-reported deaths, emergency department presentations, hospital admissions and workers’ compensation claims between 2018 and 2024.
She said the findings showed many of those affected had likely never been trained to work around electricity.
“There is an assumption that electrical injury is an electrician’s problem, but a large share of these injuries are happening to workers who have most likely never been trained to work around electricity,” said Dr Tomic.
She said electricians are exposed more often but work within stricter safety systems, while other workers may encounter live electrical equipment unpredictably and without that protection.
The study recorded 2,516 emergency department presentations and 313 hospital admissions for work-related electrical injuries in Victoria between 2018-19 and 2023-24.
Workers aged 15 to 24 years had the highest emergency department presentation rate at 21.6 per 100,000 workers, and men accounted for 81.7 per cent of presentations.
Dr Tomic said the figures are likely to underestimate the true burden.
None of the administrative datasets used were designed to capture electrical injury specifically, so cases may be missed where the injury was not correctly attributed.
The four data sources are also unlinked, meaning the same worker may appear in more than one dataset and the counts cannot be added together.
She said linking the sources and capturing the circumstances in which each injury occurs would give a much clearer picture of where safety systems are breaking down.
Dr Tomic called for targeted safety induction for young and early-career workers, extending electrical hazard awareness training into industries not traditionally seen as high risk, and better follow-up after injury.
She noted that electrical injuries are less common than many other workplace injuries but are associated with disproportionately severe outcomes, including burns, cardiac and neurological complications, and death.
“Almost all workplace electrical injuries are preventable,” said Dr Tomic.
She said workplace safety regulators and policy-makers must do better by those who work around live electrical equipment.
Public Health Association of Australia Chief Executive Officer Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin welcomed the research and said the data was unlikely to be unique to Victoria, pointing to a national problem.
He said expanding the reach of training on working safely around electricity must be a priority across all industries, including those not traditionally seen as high risk.